“So that we may be counted”

In 2017 a seemingly small change in Pakistan's questionnaire for the upcoming national census sparked vociferous debates about religious identity and the politics of recognition. The questionnaire added “Scheduled Caste” as a separate religion, whereas previously it had appeared as a Hindu subcategory. Some saw this bureaucratic shift as a cynical attempt to further diminish Pakistan's precarious Hindu minority, reopening old wounds about religious nationalism. Anti-caste progressives, however, saw an opportunity to imagine alternative political horizons for minority citizenship. How do untimely state projects render new political aspirations legible? As shown through ethnographic attention to rumors, enumerative practices, and census campaigns, the tools of bureaucratic documentation can reactivate unsettled histories, helping people imagine new possibilities from the state's margins.